Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question goes to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Many Australians will soon receive energy bills for the month of July, following recent price hikes, and they'll be shocked to learn that they're now paying some of the highest prices in the world. Ray, a constituent of mine, has sent me his bill in disbelief. It has risen by over 30 per cent. Will the minister now admit that Labor's pre-election promise to cut household energy bills by $275 will never be met?

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks to the honourable member for Fairfax for his very rare question in this House. He's right—

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, you've never answered the $275 question!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will pause. The minister has been on his feet for 15 seconds. If the member for Fairfax says one more thing, he will leave the chamber. You cannot, this close to me, simply start screaming across the chamber.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You won't hear me say this very often, but the honourable member for Fairfax does have a point. People are receiving bills and they will receive a bill shock, because the bills that people are receiving today are the direct result of the default market offer that the member for Hume hid from the Australian people before the last election.

That is the fact. That is the stone cold fact. It's the direct result—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Deakin!

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do know what winds them up, Mr Speaker. The direct result of what the member for Hume hid from the Australian people is hitting bills this month.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gippsland will cease interjecting.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a fact. It is the case, as this government has always recognised—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Deakin will leave the chamber under 94(a).

The mem ber for Deakin then left the chamber.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the case, as this government has always recognised, that there are pressures on energy bills. That's why we've acted and intervened, with no support from those opposite—with the active opposition of those opposite. The Leader of the Opposition boasts in speeches to APPEA that he will rip up the intervention because he wants to see bills go higher. That's his declared position. That is the direct result of his policy declaration, just as it's the direct result of the deceit of the member for Hume, who hid from the Australian people the default market offer. They actually changed the law—signed a regulation to change the law of the land—so that these increases would be hidden from the Australian people before the last election. This is the direct result of their actions. The fact that Australia is so exposed to these international circumstances because we had four gigawatts of dispatchable power leave the grid and only one gigawatt come on is a direct result of their policy indolence over a decade.